Fibrous materials used to deliver widely varying agents are well known and readily available for many purposes. Examples include wet wipes, disinfecting bandages and cleaning implements, and personal care absorbent articles such as disposable diapers, sanitary pads and tampons and the like.
In addition, the incorporation of additives such as surfactants into the fibrous materials to enhance control of absorbed fluids is also known. A nonwoven web material with improved softness comprising monofilaments or fibers of a thermoplastic material to which a wetting agent such as cationic, anionic, and nonionic surfactants are added is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,834 to Braun et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,112,690 to Cohen et al. teaches a method of treating a low hydrohead fibrous porous web material to increase its retentive wettability in which a surface active agent having a hydrophile-lipophile balance of at least about six is adhered to the low hydrohead fibrous porous web material and a corona discharge equivalent to a charge of at least about 0.6 watt minute per square foot per side of the web material is applied to the surface active agent bearing web material. Treated polymer fabrics having improved wicking/wetting characteristics comprising a hydrophobic polymer fabric treated with a wetting agent are taught by U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,966 to Lange et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,212,270 to Lal, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,644 to Lal et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,527,534 to Myhling teaches a sponge capable of delivering an active pharmaceutical agent into the vaginal canal during insertion of the sponge, while the sponge is resident in the vagina and during removal from the vagina, wherein the sponge is a polyurethane foam in which a non-ionic surfactant, such as Pluronic F68 is used in the polyurethane formulation to provide uniform desired cell structure, density, tensile strength, porosity, and degree of hydrophilicity. For menses and other blood-containing fluids, increases in surface wettability upon fluid contact is a major problem. This is due to protein deposition which occurs on virtually all materials, even highly hydrophobic surfaces such as TEFLON®. The only surfaces that have been shown to completely block protein absorption are surfaces with covalently attached polyethylene oxide molecules. These surfaces are highly wettable, however, and would promote fluid attachment and staining, even without protein binding.
Accordingly, there is a need for treatment chemistries and systems which are capable of altering the properties of high viscosity materials in a predefined manner, and there is a need for means for incorporating such treatment chemistries and systems into fibrous nonwoven materials.